Izabela Tomaszewska, née Gà Âowacka (13 September 1955 in Kwidzyn â 10 April 2010) was a high ranking Polish Protocol Director and archaeologist. She was head of the Protocol Unit at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland.
Izabela was the daughter of Jadwiga Gà Âowacka (née Antoszewska) and Bogdan Gà Âowacki, a historian (doctor of historical sciences), in the years 1954âÂÂ1970 a history teacher at the Pedagogical Secondary School A. Mickiewicza in Kwidzyn. As a high school student, she belonged to the Polish Scouting Association and participated twice in Operation 1001 Frombork, taking part in archaeological excavations. In 1974, she passed the Matura exam at the Secondary School in Kwidzyn, and on 19 April 1979, she graduated from the Institute of Archeology of the University of Warsaw, obtaining the professional title of Master of Arts in Archeology (the subject of her master's thesis: Late Latin Militaria). In the years 1979âÂÂ1998 she worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Archeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw; conducted archaeological research in Mazovia (analysis of finds from the cemetery in Koà ÂozÃÂbie in the Sochocin commune and excavations at the Sà Âupno 6 site near the early medieval stronghold in Szeligi). In the 1980s and 1990s, she served as editorial secretary of the journals Archaeologia Polona (participating in the preparation for printing of volumes 25âÂÂ28 in 1987âÂÂ1990) and Archeologia Polski (co-editing volumes 35âÂÂ43 in 1990âÂÂ1998).
During the years 1998âÂÂ2006, Tomaszewska was an employee of the Press Office of the President of Warsaw. In 2006, she started working at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, where she became the director of the President's Protocol Team. In that capacity, she was first lady Maria Kaczyà Âska's closest collaborator, helping her organize conferences, interviews and social campaigns.
She died on 10 April 2010, along with Poland's president and first lady and 93 other people, in the Smolensk air disaster on the way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. She is buried at the PowÃÂ zki Military Cemetery.
On 19 April 2010, Tomaszewska was posthumously awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta.
In 1980, she married the archaeologist Andrzej Jacek Tomaszewski and they had a son, Filip, born in 1981. TheirÃÂ grandson was named Emil.